ISS orbit raised by nearly one kilometer

MOSCOW, April 13 — Cargo spacecraft Progress MS-02 has propelled the International Space State (ISS) upwards approximately by one kilometer, Mission Control near Moscow has said.

"The orbit adjustment is over," a Mission Control official announced, adding that according to specialists the station would go up by another 900 meters to 404.3 kilometers above the Earth’s surface.

The adjustment of the ISS’s orbit was required to ensure the best ballistic conditions for the re-entry of the manned Soyuz TMA-19M spacecraft (due on June 5, 17:14) and for the launch of the first space vehicle of the new series Soyuz MS-01 (due at the Baikonur space site in Kazakhstan on June 21 10:46 Moscow time), Mission Control said.

The Soyuz TMA-19M will bring back to earth Russia’s Yuri Malencheko, NASA’a astronaut Timothy Kopra, and the European Space Agency’s astronaut Timothy Peake, of Britain.

The Soyuz MS-01 will take to the ISS the crew of the next space mission, Russia’s Anatoly Ivanishin, the United States’ Kathleen Rubens and Japan’s Takuya Onishi. (PNA/TASS)